Sri Lanka’s President Rajapaksa to step down on July 13: Parliamentary speaker

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has agreed to step down next week, the country’s parliamentary speaker, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana, has said.

The announcement came hours after protesters stormed the president’s official residence to vent their anger over the country’s severe economic crisis. Protesters later broke into Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe residence in the capital Colombo and set it on fire.

“To ensure a peaceful transition, the president said he will step down on July 13,” Abeywardana said in a televised statement.

Rajapaksa will remain as president until Wednesday to ensure a smooth transfer of power, Abeywardena said.

“The decision to step down on 13 July was taken to ensure a peaceful handover of power,” he said.

“I therefore request the public to respect the law and maintain peace,” he added.

The news of president’s decision triggered an eruption of celebratory fireworks in parts of Colombo.

Earlier in the day, President Rajapaksa was evacuated from the President’s House in the capital, Colombo, before thousands of protesters stormed his residence, demanding his resignation, in one of the largest anti-government marches in the crisis-hit island this year.

A Facebook livestream from inside the president’s house showed hundreds of protesters packing into rooms and corridors, shouting slogans against the beleaguered 73-year-old leader.

Footage of protesters standing and some bathing in the swimming pool inside the president’s home was widely circulated on social media. 

Protesters later broke into the home of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and set it on fire.

Video footage on local news channels showed a huge fire and smoke coming from Wickremesinghe’s private home in an affluent Colombo neighbourhood. His office said that protesters had started the fire.

There were no immediate reports of injuries in the blaze. Wickremesinghe had moved to a secure location earlier in the day, a government source told Reuters.

Thyagi Ruwanpathirana, a researcher at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera that Sri Lanka will “not come out of this crisis for some time”.

“There is a lot of wait and watch and that is affecting the people,” she said.

“We have not had fuel for days … Just imagine running out of fuel. People cant get to work. Kids can’t get to school. The whole economy is at a standstill,” she said from Colombo.

Military personnel and police were unable to hold back the crowd at the president’s residence earlier on Saturday where they chanted slogans asking Rajapaksa to step down.

“Today is independence day for me being born in this nation, not 1948, because today we have fought for our freedom from the tyranny and the scoundrels and greedy politicians who have run our nation to ground zero,” a protester told Al Jazeera.

At least 39 people, including two police officers were injured and hospitalised in the protests, hospital sources told Reuters.

Reporting from Colombo, Al Jazeera’s Minelle Fernandez said the protesters were adamant that the president must go.

“Tens of thousands of Sri Lankans are still streaming into Colombo… People stormed railway stations and literally forced employees to put them on trains and bring them to Colombo. They say they are taking their country back,” Fernandez said.

Many in the island nation of 22 million people blame the country’s decline on Rajapaksa.

Largely peaceful protests since March have demanded his resignation.

“I came here to chase away the president. The situation in the country is not good. He has to go for our country to come out of this abyss,” Gihan Roshan, 38, told Al Jazeera earlier in the day.

Sri Lanka is struggling under a severe foreign exchange shortage that has limited essential imports of fuel, food and medicine, plunging it into the worst financial turmoil in 70 years.

Months of protests had nearly dismantled the Rajapaksa political dynasty that has ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades. One of Rajapaksa’s brothers resigned as prime minister last month, and two other brothers and a nephew quit their cabinet posts earlier.

Wickremesinghe took over as prime minister in May and protests temporarily waned in the hope that he could find cash for the country’s urgent needs.

But people now want him to resign too, saying he has failed to fulfil his promises.

One demonstrator held the Sri Lankan flag in one hand and a placard in the other that read: “Pissu Gota, Pissu Ranil” (Insane Gota, Insane Ranil) in Sinhalese.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES